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The emphasis on teaching is maths, English, vocational studies such as learning a trade or entrepreneurial studies like setting up a business.

Dunston House, the site of the new school

Students will also be helped to improve their self-esteem and social skills, and the overall ethos is that no-one should be written off.

The school is the brainchild of director Richard Bell and his business partner Andrew Dickinson.

Mr Bell, whose teaching background includes prison resettlement, said: "We are opening a school for hard to reach young people, either in care, or who have tried mainstream education have been excluded or just cannot get on with it.

"We want to reach those individuals that everyone else has left behind.

"There will be tuition in numeracy and literacy and vocational and entrepreneurial studies through contact with local employers and services will come in to us at the school.

"We are also creating a support network for further education where we will follow students as a supportive ghost through their first three months at college.

"A lot of offenders I have worked with would have screamed out for an approach to teaching like ours - my thought it let's capture the positives in them while they are young.

"We want to change the stigma attached to young people who have fallen through the net of mainstream education.

"They don't want to be like this. They are created by the difficulties they face. We want to make them feel welcome and encourage them towards a positive future."